A big part of what Microsoft means when they say IE is 'integrated' with Windows is that they've put a lot of the functionality of it into shared libraries where other services and programs can make use of it. MS Office leverages some of the IE stuff, to be certain. When you save a webpage as HTML and open it in Word, the links in the document are live and it seamlessly (sometimes too seamlessly) opens an IE session. I suspect (haven't checked) that Adobe Acrobat 4.0 leverages from the IE libraries, too. You can browse the web from Acrobat 4.0. The cool thing is the HTML is rendered to PDF format on-the-fly and can be saved as such, links and all preserved. As I said, I suspect Adobe leveraged the 'integrated' IE libraries to do this (can anybody confirm this?)
It's worth noting that Netscape, in it's early to mid years, was much more closed than Mosaic. Basically Marc Andresssen ran off to the 'left coast' with the main ideas from Mosaic, screwed a lid down tight on the source and cashed in.
It's a little disturbing how well that effort was accepted, and indeed rewarded. Almost any of you reading this from a Linux (or about any other Unix) box is running that closed code, unless you're using Mozilla or Lynx.
I view it as merely different from what Microsoft did with Mosaic, not better or worse.
If you don't have a legitimate copy of the binaries (meaning you haven't bought Interix (I have)), you really can't demand the source (I can). If all that's been done with these utilities is downloading the source from GNU and building them, and there are no other changes needed to get the binary that they distribute (I haven't checked) then there is no issue. Most any Unix code that I have tried to build with Interix on my NT box has built without modification of the source. Particulary highly-portable base utilities like a lot of the stuff GNU distributes.
Interix is far better than running Cygnus, btw, although you don't get Win32 binaries, because Interix is an entire separate Posix subsystem that runs beside the Win32 subsystem and talks directly to the NT core. I can build X applications on my NT machine, for instance, then run them on an exported display from any other X desktop, just like with any other Unix box.
Why should there be 'equal access' in the first place?
We all have different needs, goals, and objectives in our lives. We all want different levels of access to the 'net. An avid kernel hacker will want lots of connectivity to communicate with others, share code, etc. Someone with a lot of interest in pornography will want a lot of Usenet bandwidth to download binary attachments. Grandma only wants email access to read and write a few letters a week to relatives.
The notion that we should all have 'equal access' seems short-sighted to me. People should acquire the level of access they want. Heavy users should pay more, light users should pay less. That won't happen if it's all given to us for free by the government.
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A big part of what Microsoft means when they say IE is 'integrated' with Windows is that they've put a lot of the functionality of it into shared libraries where other services and programs can make use of it. MS Office leverages some of the IE stuff, to be certain. When you save a webpage as HTML and open it in Word, the links in the document are live and it seamlessly (sometimes too seamlessly) opens an IE session. I suspect (haven't checked) that Adobe Acrobat 4.0 leverages from the IE libraries, too. You can browse the web from Acrobat 4.0. The cool thing is the HTML is rendered to PDF format on-the-fly and can be saved as such, links and all preserved. As I said, I suspect Adobe leveraged the 'integrated' IE libraries to do this (can anybody confirm this?)
It's worth noting that Netscape, in it's early to mid years, was much more closed than Mosaic. Basically Marc Andresssen ran off to the 'left coast' with the main ideas from Mosaic, screwed a lid down tight on the source and cashed in.
It's a little disturbing how well that effort was accepted, and indeed rewarded. Almost any of you reading this from a Linux (or about any other Unix) box is running that closed code, unless you're using Mozilla or Lynx.
I view it as merely different from what Microsoft did with Mosaic, not better or worse.
If you don't have a legitimate copy of the binaries (meaning you haven't bought Interix (I have)), you really can't demand the source (I can). If all that's been done with these utilities is downloading the source from GNU and building them, and there are no other changes needed to get the binary that they distribute (I haven't checked) then there is no issue. Most any Unix code that I have tried to build with Interix on my NT box has built without modification of the source. Particulary highly-portable base utilities like a lot of the stuff GNU distributes.
Interix is far better than running Cygnus, btw, although you don't get Win32 binaries, because Interix is an entire separate Posix subsystem that runs beside the Win32 subsystem and talks directly to the NT core. I can build X applications on my NT machine, for instance, then run them on an exported display from any other X desktop, just like with any other Unix box.
Why should there be 'equal access' in the first place?
We all have different needs, goals, and objectives in our lives. We all want different levels of access to the 'net. An avid kernel hacker will want lots of connectivity to communicate with others, share code, etc. Someone with a lot of interest in pornography will want a lot of Usenet bandwidth to download binary attachments. Grandma only wants email access to read and write a few letters a week to relatives.
The notion that we should all have 'equal access' seems short-sighted to me. People should acquire the level of access they want. Heavy users should pay more, light users should pay less. That won't happen if it's all given to us for free by the government.
Anything from 1988 is way, way, way out of date for personal computer statistics.
Does it say that the average user has an 8088 machine, but 16% can now afford 286's?